yep, as the title says, i bought a nice clean 90 f150 efi 351/man lwb,because i thought it looked like good value and it gave me 5th gear that my 79 swb louie did'nt and this came about because i'm draging the chain on getting the 57/58( not sure which grill to use)bbw on the road with the cobra 4.6/man/jag front/9"rear.
i'm not against progress but after 2 days chasing a mis, i realy am having second thoughts about getting rid of the carby model, the book was little help so back to basics, compression, plugs ,leads,sensor wiring, firing order,, a timing light was'nt effective so smash an old plug to make a piston stopper, turn the motor back and forth, get out the dress makers tape, find the middle, work out the measurement per degree, mark 8 deg, remove a jumper wire, start the motor, time with an old timing light( the new snapon light did'nt like this motor!!!)reset the timing to the corect base timing and one problem is now solved. i'm beginning to think a torker manifold/650 holley is starting to look good at this point, it's not that i can't eventually fix most things it's just that it's an average of an hours drive between towns and mobile phone coverage isn't the best, at least with the older motors a pair of pliers, a screwdriver and a length of fencing wire can get u going ,has anyone else gone through this?
cya...gary

 

I was reading some automotive industry blab in a trade magazine.
One of the articles was about a guy in Colorado (US) that goes around holding clinics on installing and tuning carbs on new Vetts.
When I bought my 97 Ford Explorer I opened the hood to have a look see, all sorts of things I had no idea about. I started looking for the distributor, kinda as a landmark, I finally traced a plug wire back to a rectangle box. I ain't seen a Dizzy that was that shape.
I closed the hood.
Technology isn't always better.

 

I think electronic fuel injection is often misunderstood. Sure carbs are simple and easy to work on but they can be tricky to tune. As it can be in a lot of situations, trial and error to find the correct jets. While with EFI, you just got to let the engine run for a few minutes and take a test drive to calibrate it.

I think people just get scared when they pop the hood and see all those wires. If you just look at it one component at a time, it's still basic stuff. A fuel injector is just an electrical switch. An oxygen sensor just reads how much oxygen just like the temperature sender reads how hot the engine is. It's just now they are interconnected.

Now in many ways it's almost simpler to set up an EFI engine. As Dick said about the coil pack on his Explorer. It's now impossible to have the timing out 180 degrees. Since the crank position sensor reads the crank pulley or flywheel.

EFI has so many advantages to ignore. Better fuel economy, throttle response, adaptability to weather conditions, emissions etc.

I grew up working on carbs since all our vehicles were fairly old. At the time, the newest vehicle we had was with the GM's TBI. I was the first person in my family to get a vehicle with port injection.

I've had my share of annoying problems with carbs too. Our '78 F-250 would all of a sudden just die. It wouldn't start again for like 5 mins. It wasn't the carb, coil, distributor, fuel pump, fuel filter, ignition box. Since the truck was getting old and unreliable to carry 350 gals of water daily. It's been replaced by a '91 F-250 diesel.